We Are One

Whenever we travel any distance, Arlena brings along some of her CDs. Half the time they remain in the carrying case. Because I do the driving, she’s in charge of the musical entertainment should we so choose to be so entertained. I will have to admit her tastes are much more eclectic than mine. Sometimes I have to endure a Yanni or country CD before we can listen to a Broadway musical, an Oldies or a folk music CD.

     Because I am very much a child of my generation, I never tire of Peter, Paul and Mary, Pete Seeger or The Kingston Trio. Not only is their music singable, their lyrics are both memorable and contain a message that still rings true today and thus, sadly, we still need to hear today. Bob Dylan’s Blowin’ in the Wind is as relevant today as it was forty-some years ago because racism is still alive and well. Pete Seeger’s If I Had a Hammer continues to call out for justice, freedom and love between all of us the world over.

     And then there is a favorite of mine, Peter Yarrow’s River of Jordan. “I traveled the banks of the River Jordan/ to find where it flows to the sea./ I looked in the eyes of the cold and hungry/ and I saw I was looking at me./ I wanted to know if life had a purpose/ and what it all means in the end./ In the silence I listened to the voices inside me/ and they told me again and again./ ‘There is only one river. There is only one sea./ And it flows through you, and it flows through me. / There is only one people. We are one and the same./ We are all one spirit. We are all one name. We are the father, mother, daughter and son./ From the dawn of creation, we are one./ We are one.’”

     So says Yarrow. So says Genesis. Is not that the meaning of the creation story? Yes, it is a parable, but its truth cannot be denied. Intelligent Design or evolution or a combination of both, it does not matter. We can debate the how of creation until the kingdom comes and we will never escape the biblical truth that we all come from one man/person/creature/child-of-God.

     The that is our beginning point. When we look into the eyes of anyone and everyone – the poor, the rich, those of different color or gender, the sick, the healthy, whoever and wherever – we are looking into our own eyes. “We are the father, mother, daughter and son./ From the dawn of creation, we are one./ We are one.”

     Our differences are not meant to divide us, only to distinguish us one from another. We are not the same but we are so similar that what distinguishes us is so minor that it is truly, in the end, inconsequential. Therein lies the problem. We make those minor differences the reason for separating us one from another when they should simply be the cause for celebration that we are not clones one of another.

     How many more roads must we all walk down before we can finally understand that we are all one? How many more times do we have to be hammered over the head to realize that an injustice done to another is an injustice done to ourselves; that when one person is not free, we are not free; that when we do not love another, we do not love ourselves? As Pete Seeger asks in another one of his songs, “When will they [we, because “they” are “we”] ever learn?” Will we ever learn?        WJP